To Feel Alive
by AnonymousWriter719
Summary: Hermione is sick with self-loathing. I suck at summaries. It's not as bad as it sounds.


She couldn't sleep.

She had stared at the curtains surrounding her bed for hours, unable to shut off her mind. Or perhaps she just couldn't bring herself to do it. Going to sleep would mean having to wake up and go through another day of putting herself through hell and worrying herself to death in an effort to prove she was better than her blood. Really, she just needed to be noticed, recognized, made special by the approval of others. It was pathetic, and she hated it, hated herself.

She had two best friends that would gladly die for her and a loving family, yet there were times when none of it seemed real. Whenever she tried to envision her future, she was hit by a wall. Would she ever fall in love? Would anyone love her back? She hated herself for caring, longing, searching for this stupid fantasy. Love. It was all a delusion. She should think of her academic future, not her romantic one. Yet she couldn't help but wonder and dream.

Would she continue disappointing her parents, namely, her mother? Would they grow to hate each other over time? She hated herself for never being able to be what her mother wanted her to be; she was never good enough. Not ambitious enough, not pretty enough, not friendly enough. An ever-growing list of faults pushed onto her by her mother, whose smile never wavered as she kept on pushing.

Would she ever do anything important or successful in life? Would anyone remember or care about her after she died? She hated herself for being useless, not really good at anything worthwhile. She knew that if she said this aloud, instant objections would be raised. She was the brightest witch of their age! Top of the class! So much potential! Bullshit. All of that was worth nothing when she didn't have the courage to make something out of those talents and herself. She was meant to be in the shadows, doing all the dirty work from behind the curtain. Never recognized or acknowledged.

She hated herself because of how frail her body was: it would age and weaken and wither away, taking her with it, then die, erasing her completely. She didn't believe in God, one of the many reasons why her mother hated her, so in her eyes, after she died, that was it. She hated that she seemed to look forward to that moment, despite having an equal measure of fear. Legitimate nothingness must be better than this parody of an empty life that she was living.

She was tired. So bone-achingly tired. Exhaustion weighed her down, made her mind fade and waver. She wished for rest. She didn't want to leave her childhood and make the future become even more inevitable. She didn't want to become an adult and have to live on her own and maybe even become responsible for providing for a family. She wanted it all to end, the kind of sleep that she would never have to wake up from. How many times had she pictured herself holding a gleaming silver knife to her too-pale wrists and letting scarlet run down her arms until she was covered in it? Too many. She hated herself for fearing the pain that the knife would bring. What a coward.

She hated herself for being so depressed when she had been granted every privilege in life, every bit of good luck. Hell, she was even lucky enough to have discovered she was a witch. Better yet, she was friends with the biggest celebrities of the wizarding world. But she couldn't stop the depression. It was all her fault. She was stupid, pessimistic, oblivious and tired, painfully tired. She hated herself even more for wanting to kill herself anyways.

She hated herself for wanting something to be wrong with her, so she'd have a reason for her self-pity. She was an ungrateful bastard. Millions, no, _billions_ of children would love to have her lot in life, yet she was stupid stupid stupid…

She hated herself for never being able to feel anything. She devoured stories, trying to capture an emotion that would make her feel real for a while, but it was sporadic and rare. She lost herself in knowledge instead, desperate to be perfect and so full of facts that emotions didn't even matter anymore. It was to no avail. The only times when she ever felt something strong enough to truly shake her, no matter how brief it was, was pain. Because pain also caused fear, anger, hurt, sadness and anxiety, and they made an impact, even if for a second, and everything was startlingly real and _there_. She hated herself for longing for it, yet shying away from it all the same.

She wished for insanity. She wished for death. She hated herself. She couldn't bring herself to do anything.

But tonight, she couldn't stand it anymore.

She got out of bed slowly, her feet making contact with the ice-cold floor. She walked towards the drawer where she had kept it; the knife she had stolen from the kitchens. She opened the drawer with trembling hands and removed the knife, which seemed to glint cruelly and enticingly in the cool half-light. She knelt on the floor, shivering from the cold. Her breathing grew quicker and her heart was pounding in her chest. She was finally going to do it. She would finally feel something, anything, and she would be released from this strange, disjointed reality. She started slowly, tentatively pressing the tip of the knife to her left index finger.

A single drop of blood welled up from between the broken skin. She was transfixed. Beautiful. Like watching a rose bloom all at once. She immediately did the same to the other index finger, staring at the perfectly formed drops of blood.

She gathered shreds of courage and drew a careful line across the center of both of her palms. Pain pierced her hands, making her wince. It stung. She didn't care.

Braver now, she brought the knife towards her wrists. The flesh was pale, almost translucent, her veins stark against the whiteness. She traced her veins delicately, making her skin weep with the pleasure of pain. A tapestry of agony laced her wrists now, marring the flesh in a way that was great and terrible. She made the cuts deeper, overwhelmed by the feelings. She felt the cool silver blade against her skin, the pain of the broken flesh, the seeping of her blood from her body, and the pleasure, that overwhelming pleasure that told her she had finally been brave enough to do something and _feel_.

As her blood began to cover her arms, like she often dreamed it would, a defiant thought suddenly appeared in her mind, like ink spreading across parchment: she would have no last words. No name she would whisper, a lover's name to utter with her last breath as a show of her eternal devotion to him. No poetic phrase to symbolize the beauty that would come from her tragedy. Nothing. She felt a grim satisfaction from this. She didn't care. She was deliberately buggering any sense of romanticism or expectations. The moment, the action, was hers. It was real and raw, and that was what she wanted. She had won. Killed her warped sense of perfection and created a new one. She would not bow down. It would be a candle flame, her pain appearing briefly and brilliantly to illuminate her surroundings, then fading without a warning, taking her with it. Perfection.

She was not tired any longer. No, she was exhilarated. She let her mind depart, immersing herself in the sensations. Her first, and last, sensations.

With her eyes open and a ghost of a smile on her face, the light left her eyes. She was left, pale, broken, and in a pool of scarlet, finally alive.


End file.
